1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrophotographic photosensitive member, a method for producing an electrophotographic photosensitive member, a process cartridge and an electrophotographic apparatus that include the electrophotographic photosensitive member, and an imide compound.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, the mainstream electrophotographic photosensitive members mounted in process cartridges and electrophotographic apparatuses are those that contain organic photoconductive substances. Such electrophotographic photosensitive members have good film forming properties, can be produced by coating processes, and thus have an advantage of high production efficiency.
In general, an electrophotographic photosensitive member includes a support and a photosensitive layer on the support. In many cases, an undercoat layer is interposed between the support and the photosensitive layer to suppress charge injection from the support to the photosensitive layer side and occurrence of image defects such as black dots.
Charge generating substances contained in recent electrophotographic photosensitive members have increasingly high sensitivity.
However, as the sensitivity of the charge generating substances increases, the amount of charges generated is increased and charges tend to remain in the photosensitive layers, resulting in a problem called ghosting. In particular, a phenomenon called positive ghosting in which only the density of the portion irradiated with light during the previous rotation is increased in an output image readily occurs.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 2001-83726 and 2003-345044 disclose techniques of suppressing (reducing) such a ghosting phenomenon by adding an electron transporting substance such as an imide compound to the undercoat layer.
In recent years, the quality requirements for the electrophotographic images have become more and more stringent and the permissible range for the positive ghosting has also narrowed.
The inventors have conducted investigations and found that the techniques disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 2001-83726 and 2003-345044 do not sufficiently suppress positive ghosting and further improvements are needed.